The Upside

by Probal Basak / July 5th, 2020

Before the virus
man lived like a monologue
long and tedious, without a pause;
walked and walked, never to look back.

Then the unscheduled darkness
and its scary hand of shades
forced the commas and semicolons,
folded the race into matchbox.

The fear of the tiny evil
masked the apathy,
let sparrows to come out of the hedge,
and our earth opened all its petals.

Probal Basak, 35, from India, started his career as a journalist working with Press Trust of India, Business Standard covering mostly socio-political issues. His first collection of poems 'Flakes of Time' was published by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. Probal, a writer and translator, writes poetry and his works have been published in literary journals like Rust+Moth, The New Verse News, Dissident Voice, Spillwords, Asian Signature. Read other articles by Probal.

This article was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2020 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.